I Just Want To Smash Things

Let’s talk about Smash Bros. I know the PS4 came out last week, and the Xbone comes out Friday, but every news organization on the planet is covering those things, I’d rather talk about this:

For those not in the know, Project M has been an attempt four years in the making to improve Brawl’s gameplay and return it to the level of competitive combat that Melee offered. It has been a long time coming, and characters have been reintroduced a few at a time over the years, but now it looks like everything is ready. The technology behind the improvements this team has made to the game is nothing short of miraculous. When Brawl was first being modded, the limitations of the modding engine became very obvious very quickly. At the time, no one even though you could do full model importation or real mechanical tweaks. It wasn't until very recently that it was possible to actually add a new character without removing an old one.

This is a big step for competitive smash, as Project M tournaments have happened, but they ave never been the standard. The competitive Brawl scene is largely dead anyway, due to the nature of the game and the lack of a community consensus on a unified mod engine to play on. The other primary mod set that people use is Brawl+, which sticks closer to its Brawl roots, but still tightens up the gravity and other changes. Brawl+ has had the advantage of not needing the time it has taken Project M to really get up and running, since the changes are much more subtle. Project M, however, has shown a lot more promise as a balanced platform, and has a more dedicated team, so it will hopefully be supported with balance patches for a long time.

I’m very excited about this new version. I still have my Wii hooked up and everything solely for Smash Bros, and probably will for the foreseeable future. Smash Bros U is looking great so far, and everything Sakurai has said about it so far has been overwhelmingly positive and beneficial to the health of the game. It’s going to be at least a year before the release of the next Smash Bros, but I’m going to try to not be freaking out the whole time. The announcement trailer still gives me chills.